Thinking of Novemeber??

Well, your latest observation may well prove to be the most important. From the looks of these photos, nesting and brood-rearing cover is limited. Losing a grazed pasture is very significant. Your covey observations were no doubt during the hunting season where they were using more woody cover. I would suspect that the summer territory would have centered more around that pasture and the small perennial covers that weren't as wooded. From the timber perspective, the remaining timber is significantly taller and the east/west strip between the two fields in the left half of the pic looked to be twice as wide in the older photo.

Photo quality prevents some conclusions. It does look like the canopy cover on the timber has also increased over time and maybe I can see that the understory is less vegetated though that is a stretch with the quality. Crop selection is also difficult to discern in these photos. The recent photo looks to be all row crop which would again indicate that there is no cover there during the nesting season that is useable. If the perennial vegetation around the ponds isn't grazed, it probably is limited on it's productivity. If it is fescue, same trend. Further, having it mostly near water increases the influence of nest predators as it is their focal habitat as well. Add to that the aging of the woodlands (cavities), loss of fur harvesters, and the fact that you're in marginal habitat to start with, and the predator effect will be greater. Don't get me wrong, predators aren't the "cause" of your collapse, but they parallel the habitat changes. Anyone see something I didn't?
 
The answer is obvious.

Some time after 1998 the world shifted from black & white to color. All of the hunters and even some of the dogs are now wearing Blaze Orange.

The quail can see you guys coming from a mile away!:D
 
I can't tell if that is a farm road or not but there may be lack of savanna ground too. Quail need to grit also. Didn't see where there may be a road or bare area close to cover. Crop fields that are bare don't serve the same purpose. Also, are the water ditches grown up or are they mowed? Fescue ditches?
 
The National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative is doing a project on this very subject called the then and now.

They have someone evaluating hi resolution photos from across the U.S. in areas submitted by the state staff that have been know historically to have good quail populations but no longer do. Through this effort they we are hoping to address the common misconception that "nothing has changed" with some hard data to show that things aren't just as they were in the good old days.

When I have something to share on the project I'll post it for you all to see.
 
KsHusker said:
So your trees did not grow any taller in 45 years? The plant structure in the hedgerows did not change in 45 years? No GMO' seeds and massive use of Roundup and other garbage products by Monsanto and others?

Find some old aerial photos of the farm which I'm sure someone has laying around and compare them to more recent google earth photos (You can go back to the early 90's alone on Google Earth I believe) and compare the 2. I'm sure you'll see massive changes not just on your farm but the neighbors. Habitat is not just inclusive of your small plot of land be it 160 acres or 2000 - everyone needs to take a more Macro view of things instead of the micro view.

The predator argument is old and worn out - they have nothing to do with it - quail are at the bottom of the food chain, they will be eaten by things, however if they do not have what they need they will not be prolific.


I suppose predators have all but eliminated the lesser prairie chicken in KS, TX, NM, CO & NM? All those migrating Golden Eagles and Coopers Hawks have just put a hurting on them - we should open a season on birds of prey. :cheers::thumbsup:
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The chemicals we use today are a lot less toxic then the ones 20 or 30 years ago. The LDS of roundup is higher than table salt, you have to eat more of it than salt to die. We used to use DDT, 245T(agent orange), Furadan and lots of chemicals way more toxic than today. GMO seeds, have allowed less chemicals and pesticides to be used. We used to spray all the corn with insecticides to control corn rootworm and cut worm. Today with BT corn we don't have to. Bacillus Thuringensis is a naturally occurring soil bacteria, it is the number one organic pesticide. By genetically modifying corn, they have just added the protein to the plant instead of spraying it. Roundup was a carpet cleaner, it was discovered when throwing leftover soap in a yard it killed all the vegetation. I can guarantee you chemicals used today are way less toxic than the ones used in the past. There is a reason Roundup isn't restricted use and you can buy it in Walmart. There is a reason some of the chemicals we used to use are outlawed today.
Roundup also allows farmers to notill. We have to be able to kill the weeds before we plant. The stubble that is left through the winter today used to be worked down in the fall to control weeds. Leaving the stubble benefits wildlife as well as benefits the environment by greatly reducing erosion. Without Roundup notill as we know it wouldn't exist. Everything would be worked down in the fall like we used to do.
 
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PheasantWhisperer said:
I can't tell if that is a farm road or not but there may be lack of savanna ground too. Quail need to grit also. Didn't see where there may be a road or bare area close to cover. Crop fields that are bare don't serve the same purpose. Also, are the water ditches grown up or are they mowed? Fescue ditches?
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There is certainly a lot to look at. There is an old farm road running east west but I don't think there would be much grit there. The ditches are fescue and mowed.

You know immediately around the house(north part of ground in the pics) I can't say I ever saw a young brood of birds in the summer. I would usually see some just south of the property in the summer along a gravel road in the evenings. A biologist at the nearby FWA told me once that quail do a spring and a fall shuffle. You may see a young bunch of birds all summer, and then not find them there come season. I have found this to sometimes be the case, but certainly have been able locate coveys more often than not by where I saw them during the summer.

I really appreciate the time to look this over. There was a time when all roads here were gravel roads. There were a lot more cattle, more smaller farms and more quail. I am sure these all play into the decline and habitat change/loss. The walk from my moms house out across the field still feels the same, but I guess you don't pay as close attention to the details of habitat when birds were still around. I remember times when through the summer I could call a bob up to the house almost any day of the week, and when during a winter snow you could usually count on spotting a covey out in a field on a Sunday morning searching for food.

Thanks
 
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